As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in many countries around the world, drinking alcohol is part of the culture and is a tradition nobody bats an eyelid at regardless of the potential serious harm it can cause. Whether it’s a modest glass of wine or soft drink with lunch, an aperitif before dinner, a beer at Oktoberfest, brandy with a meze or even a complete blowout that leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth and a sense of regret in your head, alcohol is an enormous part of our culture across Europe and elsewhere.
Alcohol consumption in each country varies greatly and is influenced by each country’s laws, general culture and other characteristics. The World Health Organisation recently recorded alcohol consumption in each country in litres of pure alcohol for beers, wines, spirits and other alcoholic beverages. The average consumption for individuals over fifteen years of age was recorded, and the global average consumption stood at 6.18 litres, with an extremely high concentration of higher consumers here in Europe, according to the World population review.
To explain the differences in the alcohol content of different beverages (for example wine or beer), the values are expressed in litres of pure alcohol per year.
Here are the top ten countries with the highest alcohol consumption (in litres of pure alcohol per capita):
1. Czech Republic (Czechia) – 14.26
2. Latvia – 13.19
3. Moldova – 12.85
4. Germany – 12.79
5. Lithuania – 12.78
6. Ireland – 12.75
7. Spain – 12.67
8. Uganda – 12.48
9. Bulgaria – 12:46 p.m
10. Luxembourg – 12.45 p.m
Considering the data provided by Our World in Data, it can be safely said that European countries traditionally have a higher amount of alcohol consumed per person, which is unlikely to come as a shock to any of us who were born and raised here. Remember those comical pictures of you as a small kid stored away in some dusty album in the attic which always featured at least one ”joke picture” of your dad giving you a beer? Any European likely has a few of those.
The data for the Republic of Croatia is 8.73 litres per capita per year, which would be somewhere in the middle on the global scale. According to these statistics, men in this country drink four times more than women, and speaking more precisely about the ratio, it stands at 13.96 : 3.99 for Croats.
For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.
